Hearty reception for ‘Mr. Monuments’, Akingun-Roberts

From left, Usman Yusuf, Acting director, Heritage
and Monuments; Yemi Opaleye, Curator, Ibadan
Museum and Iranola Akingun-Roberts, Acting
Director General, National Commission for Museums
and Monuments during the tour.

Akintayo Abodunrin reports the recent visit of the Acting Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Iranola Akingun-Roberts and three other directors of the NCMM to the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan.

GOING by the hearty reception given to the Acting Director General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Mr. Iranola Akingun-Roberts, penultimate Saturday during his tour of the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, picked the right candidate for the post.

The NCMM had late last year become embroiled in a crisis which was affecting its functions before Prince Kayode intervened by sending the Director General, Dr. Joe Eborieme and four directors of the commission on leave with pay in November. This naturally annoyed some people and the fact that Akingun-Roberts was not of the commission but a director in another parastatal in the ministry of culture made some condemn the minister’s action.

But given what transpired at the Ibadan Museum when Akingun-Roberts and three other directors; Mr. Emmanuel Methuagan, acting director, Finance and Supply, Mr. Usman Yusuf Abdala, acting director, Heritage and Monument and Mrs. Edith Egunke, visited, the staff confirmed that they were happy with the leadership of Akingun-Roberts.

It began after the acting DG and his team had concluded its inspection of some of the museum’s facilities including the gallery, library, craft centre, store and playground and was interacting with the staff inside the auditorium. Mrs. Ola Oluyemi, a daughter of the late dramatist, Isola Ogunsola, (I Show Pepper) and a staff of the museum, spoke the minds of the other staff when she recited a welcome ewi (Yoruba poetry) for the visitors.

Oluyemi started with tribute to Akingun-Roberts. She said he was a good and caring father interested in the welfare of the staff. She said although they were supposed to be at home resting, they willingly came to the office on a Saturday morning because they were happy with him and his team for paying all their outstanding entitlements. Oluyemi, whose rendition kept being interrupted by her colleagues’s shout of yes whenever she made a point, told Akingun-Roberts that 2007 was a trying year for staff of the commission because they were denied promotion and because some were disengaged. She urged him to re-examine these issues. Oluyemi ended her rendition with prayer and if not that the auditorium was well roofed, the thunderous amen of the staff would have blown away the roof. Such was its volume!

In his welcome address before Oluyemi’s poetry recitation, the curator, Ibadan Museum, Pastor Yemi Opaleye, told Akingun-Roberts about the history, facilities and problems of the museum. He noted that Akingun-Robert’s appointment to head the NCMM was timely and that with the steps already taken by the DG and his team, there was hope for the commission.

Continuing, Opaleye thanked Akingun-Roberts “for using your good offices to pay long and overdue arrears and emoluments of staff,” adding that “we appreciate your kind leadership and concerned spirit.” He then solicited the DG’s assistance in tackling problems such as the deplorable state of the access road, lack of a functional museum vehicle, termite infestation of the compound, lack of computers and internet services, roof leakages in the museum complex, staff training, shortage of staff and lack of funds to execute projects and programmes affecting the activities of the museum.

In his remarks, the NCMM Acting Director General said he was happy to be with the staff and thanked them for coming to receive him. He told them he was impressed by what he saw in Ibadan as Abuja cannot yet boast of a museum complex. Akingun-Roberts disclosed that when he was appointed to head the NCMM, he felt uneasy because other parastatals in the Ministry of Tourism and Culture always wondered at the in-fighting, petition writing and bickering which had become the norm at the NCMM. He revealed that when he resumed at the NCMM, he saw dis-illusionment on the faces of the staff and had to ask if staff of the NCMM were on strike.

Akingun-Roberts said because he was aware that human beings and staff welfare is crucial to the success of any organization, “we’ll do our best to make you happy because that’s the best thing any management could do for its staff.” He said he wanted to leave a legacy of good governance and due process in the NCMM and urged petition writers in the commission to stop. Akingun-Roberts stated that henceforth, things would be done properly in the commission and that right people would be put in right places. He also said whoever was not ready to toe the line should leave or would be forced to leave. He disclosed that the promotion exercise will hold later this month for eligible staff and that funds have been earmarked for training and acquisition of office equipments.

Responding to some specific requests of the staff like payment of benefits of disengaged staff; funding of the education department to execute its programmes, provision of a museum vehicle and linkages with universities, Akingun-Roberts assured all would be addressed promptly. He asked the man who spoke on linkages with universities to give management a paper on the issue. He commended staff of the education department for their enterprise and said as soon as the NCMM could afford it, a vehicle would be sent down to Ibadan.

Akingun-Roberts said the NCMM would not hesitate to pay disengaged staff their benefits as money has been set aside. He however advised them to follow proper procedures to collect their benefits.

ANA unfolds programmes for celebration of Things Fall Apart

Professor Chinua Achebe

The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), has released its programme of events for the 50th anniversary of Things Fall Apart in Nigeria just as Professor Niyi Osundare and renowned writer, Doris Lessing, will lead colloquiums in Portugal and London to celebrate the seminal novel of Professor Chinua Achebe.

A release signed by Denja Abdullahi, General Secretary, ANA, disclosed that the celebration with the theme 50 years of Things Fall Apart: Telling The World the African Story will begin on Saturday, April 12, 2008, with an interactive session involving writers like Dr. Ahmed Yerima, Kaine Agary, Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki and Dr. Karen King Aribisala at the National Theatre, Lagos. Chairman, ANA Lagos, Chike Ofili, will moderate the session which will start by 1pm while Ambassador Segun Olusola will be the chairman.

An evening of dance tributes by the National Troupe of Nigeria will hold by 5pm later in the day at the same venue. The celebration then continues on April 17 with another event tagged Things Fall Apart and the Nigerian Child at NTA 11 Arena, Abuja, by 10am. Eugenia Abu of the Nigerian Television Authority will speak to the children at the event which will feature quiz competition, spelling and reading competition among invited secondary school students, screening of NTA’s Things Fall Apart, role modeling session by teenage authors, poetry performances and variety shows. Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, will chair the occasion.

On Saturday, April 19, eminent academics including Professor Shamsudeen Amali, Dr. Festus Iyayi, Dr. Reuben Abati and Miss Tayo Ajayi will speak at a symposium with the theme Things Fall Apart in Stage at Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan at 10am. Vice Chancellor, Univeristy of Ibadan, Professor Olufemi Bamiro, will then host participants at the symposium to a luncheon at 2pm.

Things Fall Apart on stage, a performance of Biyi Bandele’s adaptation by the Jos Repertory Theatre follows by 6pm at Cultural Centre, Mokola, Ibadan. Thereafter, the celebration train moves to Anambra, Achebe’s home state on April 23. The event in the writer’s state themed Around Things Fall Apart Landscape and the Night of Griots, will begin with an excursion to Ogidi, Achebe’s ancestral community and visits to historical places in Anambra State at 10am.

Governor of Anambara State, Mr. Peter Obi, will subsequently host a luncheon by 2pm. Eminent griots such as Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okara, Jimi Solanke, Elechi Amadi, Chukwuemeka Ike, Labo Yari, Mabel Segun, Demas Nwoko, J.P. Clark, Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, Okey Ndibe and Femi Osofisan will take to the stage during a ‘Night of Griots’ at 6pm that same day in Awka.

The international colloquium on the theme of the celebration which keynote address will be delivered by Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Professor Ernest Emenyonu, will hold between Friday, April 25 to Saturday, April 26, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. 15 other distinguished writers, scholars and intellectuals from home and abroad will participate in the colloquium that will also feature opening cocktails, performance of the winning entry of the playwriting competition on Achebe’s work apart from TFA, relaunching of Okike: Journal of African New Writings founded by Achebe and awards dinners.

In a related development, foremost poet and Professor of English, Niyi Osundare, will deliver the keynote address at the international symposium on Chinua Achebe to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, between March 6 and 9, 2008. The conference convener, Vicky Hartnack, of the Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, reports that Professor Osundare will join world renown scholars such as Professor Doug Killam of the University of Guelph, Canada; Don Burness of Franklin Pierce College, New Hampshire, USA; as well as scholars from India, Great Britain, Portugal, France, Germany, the United States and Africa – Lusophone countries such as Angola; Anglophone countries such as Nigeria and Ghana; Francophone countries such as Senegal- in an three day international symposium called “Chinua Achebe: A tribute -50th Anniversary of Things Fall Apart.”

Apart from Professor Osundare’s keynote address, other highlights of the conference will include interactive sessions with representatives of the African diplomatic corp from Embassies in Lisbon; breakout seminars and panels on Achebe’s oeuvre; as well as focus sessions on the significance of Things Fall Apart in the world wide cannon. Attendees will also be taken on a trip around the historic sites of Lisbon, one of Europe’s oldest capitals.

Similarly, the renowned writer, Doris Lessing, will be the keynote speaker at a Things Fall Apart conference holding in the United Kingdom from October 10 to 11, 2008. Other speakers at the conference which seeks to revisit the novel and assess its significance then and now, and which is sponsored jointly by the Institute for English Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of Kent, include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elleke Boehmer, and Abdulrazak Gurnah. The conference will culminate with a dialogue between Chinua Achebe and the eminent Princeton scholar, Simon Gikandi.